#subfield

Week Eight: Tuesday, March 5, 2019

This week’s lecture on subfields of biological anthropology the focus was on forensic anthropology, which is the use of human osteology and archaeology to legal investigation of human remains. A large point of focus was trauma; the different aspects of trauma, the nature of trauma, the importance of the location and pattern of trauma and so forth. We also spoke briefly about forensic entomology or the use of insects and other bug activity in a body to determine time of death.

In relation to the nature of trauma, we talked about the three different time classifications used to describe the time in which an injury or trauma was sustained by the victim. First, there was an antemortem trauma which is an injury that occurred sometime before the victim’s death and therefore an anthropologist would be able to clearly see remodeling on the bone. Second, there was a perimortem trauma which is an injury that occurred right before the death of the victim and could possibly also serve as cause of death. Some characteristics of a perimortem trauma include sharp edges surrounding the injury, hinging, fracture lines, and hematoma staining. The final one was postmortem trauma which is an injury that occurred after the victim had already died, an example of this would be cut marks on the bone of a victim that was dismembered by their killer. Some characteristics of a postmortem trauma include clean edged wounds, no hinging, and very little evidence of fracture lines.

Week Seven: Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Reading week was last week and marked the halfway point of the semester and also a slight change in direction of lecture content. Up until now, lectures have been focused on different things that effect biological anthropology but this second half of the semester has switched over to focus more on the different subfields of biological anthropology.

This week we focused in on the subfield of human osteology and paleopathology, basically the study of the human skeleton. We first talked about the osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and osteocytes that make up bone cells and their roles; osteoblasts making new bone and repairing the old, osteoclasts breaking down of old bone, and osteocytes being inactive osteoblasts that are trapped in the bone matrix. We then went on to talk about what exactly bones do aside from hold humans and animals together, this was separated into three subcategories; mechanical, synthesizing and metabolic. Mechanically bones protect organs and allow for tissue attachment, bones also produce red and white blood cells as well as platelets, and they are also where minerals, calcium, and good fats get stored.